


Breathe, Breathe, Breathe,

by callmeflo



Series: if Wishes were Irises [8]
Category: Those Who Went Missing
Genre: Conservatory, Gen, Roleplay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 13:30:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17961488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmeflo/pseuds/callmeflo
Summary: A glimmer of startling blue swirls hypnotically from a stone ledge a few metres above her, the enchantment reflecting in its owner’s sharp gaze as they meet Flicker's own dark eyes and -





	Breathe, Breathe, Breathe,

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a roleplay with the wonderful Eldritch-Aberrance!  
> the first section is mine, and then alternates :)

The tranquil quiet drifting from the forest depths lulls Flicker into a trance, edging as close to sleep as she’s able to reach with absentminded thoughts swirling past her foggy eyes like dreams. Her long snout hovers just above a patch of moss from where her head is pillowed on crossed forepaws, and a hind leg has slipped to droop alongside her tail down the height of the coarse cobblestone wall. The glorious golden bearded iris sprouting at her wither is open in full bloom, and all six ruffled petals sway gently to the rhythm of her meditative breathing.

The forest is not her home (though her connection to the developed biome is discordant more often than not these days), but the overgrown ruins that surround the Temple of Silence resemble her old village boundary closer than any prim, decorative, industrial areas. It hardly matters here anyway, in the sprawling conservatory that welcomes any esk from any corner of the world and moulds itself to fit their desires without their powers diminishing, and in that moment Flicker is merely looking for a moment of serenity and peacefulness after a long journey. 

The sounds of nature are different here within the crystalline walls of the spirits’ sanctuary. Wild animals do not exist in the foliage and branches, but unusual weather patterns often rustle the tree leaves instead; the unpolluted waves lapping at a small patch of white beach seem to hum in tinkling notes that water usually cannot form; and the caws and hoots of avian familiars are always accompanied by echoey wisps of telepathic speech. 

Such sounds now waver into focus at the edge of Flicker’s awareness, tugging her slowly from her doze. A blink of her clear eyelids chases the last clouds away and she scrambles up to arch into a cat-like stretch, tossing her mane and petals loose whilst watching her footing on the narrow wall. Since she’s up, she may as well take a wander and see if she recognises any of the day’s other visitors.

✧

The Conservatory was never the place for them, yet here they were again, making careful steps between the verdant stones.A small, strange esk orbited by numerous shimmering blue berries and an enchanted ring bending to the shapes of infinity, wandered along the Temple of Silence ruins.

Every time a stone was misplaced, a leaf shifted, a branch moved, even the most minute action repeated over and over while near the small dark esk, as though it were a glitch on repeat.An otherwise impossible act, for something to vanish from one place in a matter of seconds, just to reappear where it once was and be shifted again and again and again …

But the esk was careful, like a cat atop a tree limb, it was able to avoid disturbing too much of their surrounds.They liked the Temple of Silence, a quiet place to explore without causing others the disorienting experience of looping time while they were nearby.The little esk hummed out to the forest and stones in soft echoes, a conveyance of appreciation overlapping and harmonizing on and on and on until it would slowly fade to quiet.

It was then that they spotted Flicker down below.

The musing Flicker may have heard the repeating echoes of the strange nearing esk, an odd, impossible sound of repetition in this place.Or perhaps she felt something… off coming from its direction; sounds of small stones, the distinct sound of a branch snapping, repeating over and over on an infinite loop. When Ehtni noticed the other esk rise, they immediately crouched down to hide on the overlooking stones and greenery, peering over in curiosity, but hoping that the other esk wouldn’t look up and see them.

Though poor Ehtni tends to forget that their bright, glowing blue enchantment might give them away…

✧

The far off voices drift in and out as other esk move about, playful shouts trailing off with distance once again, but Flicker suddenly realises that it’s not as silent and still beside the Temple as she’d thought. As if it has crept up on her, so quiet and unassuming at first that she didn’t register the crescendo, the presence of another esk and their musical voice is abruptly obvious and nearby. A delicate _snick_ of a twig breaking, and then again, and again, as if the spirit were doing so deliberately in time with their tuneful thoughts, and then the _tap tap thud_ of a pebble bouncing its way to the soft forest floor, repeated once, twice, thrice.

Flicker pauses in her movements mid-stride, cocks her head for a better range of hearing, and lets her long, trailing tail settle amongst the fallen leaves to lay still. There’s just the barest sound of paws padding along spongey moss, the humming music sharpening like tinnitus ringing in her head, and then it’s all at once silent.

The brown esk lowers their hovering paw with a soft crunch and lifts her nose, eyes searching. A glimmer of startling blue swirls hypnotically from a stone ledge a few metres higher, the enchantment reflecting in its owner’s sharp gaze as they meet her own dark eyes -

The brown esk lowers their hovering paw with a soft crunch and lifts her nose, eyes searching. A glimmer of startling blue swirls hypnotically from a stone ledge a few metres higher, the enchantment reflecting in its owner’s sharp gaze as they meet her own dark eyes -

The brown esk lowers their hovering paw with a soft crunch and lifts her nose…

✧

Above, narrow, dark eyes from the like dark esk widen. They’d been spotted.

A mix of both alarm, but fascination came over them, watching the graceful, intrigued Flicker repeating their curious search again and again… But it was only a moment before Ehtni was overcome with a reverberating reclamation of panic, alarmed echoes of melodic conveyance rippling out from the small esk that harmonized into whispers of _“I’m sorry …!I’m sorry …!I’m sorry …!I’m - “_ It seemed to disturb the orbit of the marble berries about them, their circling paths growing more erratic, before the small dark esk just… leapt.

Up and up they went, up away, and up and back.The conservatory was the only place they dared rise higher, instead of crouch lower, for it would be awful to disorient anything flying into a fall or confuse those creatures making their way across narrow branches.Moving up and away from Flicker, enough, they hoped, that she would no longer be caught in a loop, the other esk stopped on a much higher outcropping of stone overlooking the area.A small dark snout with dark eyes, and a glowing mark of ‘infinity’ peered over the edge again to make sure, distant hums of concern rippling out from their perch.

Were they alright?Were they?Were they?Were…?Did they remember?Did they?Did they?

A tiny pebble fell from the spot again and again and again where the esk had stopped.

✧

Flicker stumbles as she comes back to herself, dizzied and dumbstruck, legs splaying out to catch her confused, woozy body. Her face wrenches to the side to shake off something she didn’t know was there and her iris rapidly buds and then billows its petals out, jittery and unsure.

She takes a dragging deep breath. The Luminary’s Temple of weathered stone ruins looms above her, including the low, crumbling wall she’d spent a day drowsing upon. The faintest sound of an esk calling bounces through the trees from a distance ahead, which was of course the direction she’d been heading: perhaps there’s someone she recognises visiting this morning. The thought echoes around her mind oddly, familiar. 

But with her course decided, again, she takes a step forward to continue on her way - and like a marionette unable to control her own strings, her head turns itself to the leafy canopy up and to the left, eyes fixing on a point with no subject.

Flicker jolts back, paws crackling on orange leaves and tangling in the golden ends of her tail. Her eyes are wide and straining but there’s nothing there to see except sun dappled greenery and mismatched mossy bricks.

Her vision suddenly blurs with a flashing static of aqua blue which clears just as quick, leaving her eyes stinging but her thoughts ringing - ringing with the memory of a melodic tune that brings forth the sight of black eyes widening in fright -

Oh, of course. Intangible wisps of an esk’s enchantment become clear then, just the last lingering sparks as it trails off after its possessor. The maelstrom of alarm calms in an instant at the understanding.

With her last glimpse (through hypnotised eyes) of the panicking, nervous esk clouding her mind with curiosity and worry, Flicker steadies herself and bounds nimbly up the rubble and half-crumbled brickwork. It’s uneven footing as tree roots have broken the ground’s surface and cracked the stone and marble above, but she is used to caved in roofs and footholds carpeted in slippery moss, and so she perseveres.

A tendril of telepathy emanates from her, a gentle hello, a question, and a reassurance forming an empathic inquiry, as she follows the invisible path after the frantically apologetic traveler. “There’s no need to run again,” she murmurs.

✧

_She remembered._

Ehtni had watched with a fascinated horror at the stumbling, discombobulated confusion of the pretty esk below.They would never know what it’s like to be caught in their own loop, not really, and it seemed to be different for many beings, almost every being, unlucky enough to get too near.Most really didn’t seem to like it that much… with the exception of the First One they ever saw, the one who made them and Played, Riddled, Challenged.

But many (who could move, or still wanted to move) tried to get away after that.And this one with the troubled iris… she was coming closer now.An odd fearful curiosity rooted Ehtni in place, then let up, then came back; echoing through them much like the sounds of their humming conveyance.

Eht’nirinthe peered down as Flicker climbed the stones, clearly curious at the esk that would come closer, but then hurried backwards, losing sight of her from behind the ruins’ crest.Stopping, listening for a further approach, they feel the welcoming empathy, the reassuring ‘hello’, and immediately they skitter backwards a bit further, lightly bumping into an outer wall of the Temple of Silence.

The pebble still fell over and over and over the edge where they once were.

In a melodious outpouring of echoes comes a reply that eventually forms into understanding. _” I’m sorry …If you … If you … you near … If you near – If you near-- If you near, you … you’re going – you’re going – you’re going -If you near, you’re going to … going to … going to …”_ The whispers almost sound like wind chimes, ringing as they touch over and over, softer and softer, until moved again with new words.

But then, comes an echoing image, almost like a transferred thought, the sight of Flicker lowering her paw with a soft crunch, lifting her nose, eyes searching.Seeing the watcher- lowering her paw with a soft crunch, lifting her nose, eyes searching.Seeing the watcher-lowering her paw with a soft crunch, lifting her nose, eyes searching.Seeing the watcher- …

_“… be stuck- be stuck, over and over and over and over . . .”_

The whispers echoed concern, curiosity, interest, but concern, warning.Thank you, but it’s dangerous, confusing, dangerous, confusing, endless.

✧

They hadn’t retreated far, only a little further between the cobblestone ruins to shrink into a deeper nook, and Flicker comes quickly back within sight of their spellbinding enchantment. The other spirit’s chiming voice slowly reaches her at a hushed whisper, repeating in the same pattern.

On the ground beside her dainty paw, a wayward stone finishes the fifteenth repetition of its fall and finally lays still, but a foot ahead, the long, feathered grass that had managed to sprout high upon a cracked pillar sways spasmodically, still caught in the copies. The conservatory doesn’t adhere to the physics of the real world, but the unnaturalness here differs from the norm even so.

Flicker takes it all in with a glance, and then elegantly, pointedly, folds her legs underneath herself and shuffles into a comfortable position right there on the enchantment’s border. The mesmeric blue infinity symbol sways enticingly and tickles at her mind, but the spirit finds it easier to keep her head this time. She tosses her tail and the tips of the long hair flick round to her side four times before coming to rest.

The traveler had been caught in illusions and magic before, and it had never stopped her. She’d spoken to esk unable to communicate, or who only used images or charades, and yet she had managed. With the temporal loop now not unexpected, and the proof that the other esk could still speak to her through it, she couldn’t find it in herself to just walk away. So maybe she had a soft spot for the underdog - a spirit with the steady thrum of an accepting traveler’s signature but lonely eyes and a fearful voice definitely pulled at her heart and curiosity.

“My name is Flicker,” she offers easily, as if their initial meeting had been of no disturbance to her, and as it reaches the smaller esk she can feel the thought fracturing and stuttering as everything else does. She plays at nonchalance to avoid scaring the other creature off again, but can’t resist glances out the corner of her eye at the pretty iridescent berries that float above their silky black fur.

✧

For a time, Ehtni was quiet.The esk stayed backed up against the outer wall, watching in fascinated confusion, but also pleasant surprise.Echoing conveyance of hesitant excitement, and muted curiosity thrummed distantly from the small traveler.

_“You would- you would- You would stay?… would stay? …would stay?”_

The quiet humming chimes of the echoing voice held some pleased hope, twined with alert concern, but the hope held stronger.Slowly, continuing to watch Flicker as though she might do something startling at any moment, Ehtni sits down.Their looping enchantment continues to orbit, hypnotizing, but the erratic circles of the marble berries had calmed to a leisurely swirling pace.

_”I am called … am called … Eht’nirinthe – Eht’nirinthe – Eht’nirinthe or Ehtni … rinthe or Ehtni … or Ehtni…”_

The humming ‘words’ then shifted to a pleased, concerned, but pleased welcome, enjoyment at the company, rare company, but cherished company.But soon a small embarrassment shied its way through in muted rhythms. _”I was not – was not- not quiet enough … quiet enough … quiet enough for Silence – for Silence – for Silence.Did you seek-you seek-you seek it? … you seek it? … seek it?”_

✧

“Oh, that’s a beautiful name,” Flicker compliments, eyes softening in a smile when she looks over to the other esk. “Eht - nir - inthe.” She murmurs the syllables to herself, contemplating them, and they echo away from her: _eht - nir - inthe - nir - inthe - nir - inthe._ It doesn’t have a meaning to her knowledge, but she thinks the musical sound to it suits the little spirit perfectly.

For a moment, Flicker’s eyes focus on the pirouetting berries, the marble effect catching the light of their enchantment and throwing spectrums around the dark, forested area. Her flecks shine in the artificial light, and her iris sways as if it’s breathing, the dance harmonising with Ehtni’s own drifting movements.

She blinks her clear eyelids, smooths a lock of mane with a forepaw, and answers, “I seek it on occasion, but right now I invite companionship. To be alone and quiet all the time must grow boring quickly, with no one to laugh with, or sounds of nature, and no tales of adventures.”

Her eyes light up as she speaks, and from within the hidden centre of her nature feature comes a soft fluttering of wings. A tiny bird emerges as if called by a queue for music, and it tweets and chirps a melody as its fluffy chestnut and cream feathers blur their way into the air. It dips to touch a delicate wing against its esk’s raised nose, and then swoops up toward a nicely poised branch. There’s a static in its actions when it brushes against Ehtni’s endless loop, flicking in place for a few seconds before it passes, but it appears completely unbothered by the detour.

“I prefer the ambiance of my home for reflecting,” she continues, “a gentle breeze, animals rustling about the flowers, crickets chirping out in the meadows - but there was a mighty storm going on and I could barely hear myself think!”

She looks back at the other esk, slowly unwinding from their tense posture and hiding spot, and hopes her kind, undemanding aura will continue to draw them out of their shell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> callmeflo https://sta.sh/075jhsaf0pc  
> Base Score: 34 AP (Writing: 1717 words)  
> +20 AP (Conservatory Bonus)  
> +1 AP (Small Familiar/Swarm: 1 AP * 1)  
> +1 AP (Enchantment: 1 AP * 1)  
> +5 AP (Personal Work Bonus)  
> +10 AP (Other Esk Bonus: 10 AP * 1)  
> +20 AP (Esk Interaction Bonus: 10 AP * 2)  
> +16 AP (Storyteller Bonus: 8 AP * 2)  
> Total AP per submission: 107
> 
> eldritch-aberrance  
> Base Score: 22 AP (Writing: 1101 words)  
> +20 AP (Conservatory Bonus)  
> +1 AP (Enchantment: 1 AP * 1)  
> +5 AP (Personal Work Bonus)  
> +10 AP (Other Esk Bonus: 10 AP * 1)  
> +20 AP (Esk Interaction Bonus: 10 AP * 2)  
> +8 AP (Storyteller Bonus: 8 AP * 1)  
> Total AP per submission: 86
> 
> flicker  
> Base Score: 17 GP (Writing: 1717 words)  
> +5 GP (Conservatory Bonus)  
> +1 GP (Small Familiar/Swarm: 1 GP * 1)  
> +12 GP (Storyteller Bonus: 6 GP * 2)  
> Total GP per submission: 36  
> +  
> Base Score: 11 GP (Writing: 1101 words)  
> +5 GP (Conservatory Bonus)  
> +6 GP (Storyteller Bonus: 6 GP * 1)  
> Total GP per submission: 22
> 
> ehtni  
> Base Score: 17 GP (Writing: 1717 words)  
> +5 GP (Conservatory Bonus)  
> +1 GP (Enchantment: 1 GP * 1)  
> +12 GP (Storyteller Bonus: 6 GP * 2)  
> Total GP per submission: 35  
> +  
> Base Score: 11 GP (Writing: 1101 words)  
> +5 GP (Conservatory Bonus)  
> +1 GP (Enchantment: 1 GP * 1)  
> +6 GP (Storyteller Bonus: 6 GP * 1)  
> Total GP per submission: 23


End file.
